More than 192 million domain names have been registered through the interactions of Registries, Registrars, and Registrants. Registrants are the individuals or organizations that hold the right to use a specific domain name. Registrants gain this right by registering the domain name with a Registrar. Registrars are accredited by an international body called the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) and compete with one another to get the business of Registrants. A Registry (or Registry Operator or Registry Administrator) as defined by ICANN is the authoritative, master database of all domain names registered in each Top Level Domain (TLD). Registries are the authority and central repositories for second level domain names registered in its TLD space. A Registry keeps the master database for the TLD and also generates the Domain Name System (DNS) “zone file” for the TLD which allows computers to route Internet traffic to and from top-level domains anywhere in the world. The data of TLD zone files describe a portion of the domain name space for specific TLDs and contain information needed to resolve domain names to Internet Protocal (IP) numbers.
Each top-level domain also has associated with it some other databases. One of these is a “Whois” database which gives contact information for each domain name in the top-level domain. Another is a database that keeps track (for the Registry) of the designated Registrar that is responsible for each second-level domain. Registries record and allow Registrars access to various attributes of a domain registration such as registration periods, ownership, assigned nameservers, and sponsoring Registrar.
What later may be referred to the Registrar System is the system which traditionally, domain name Registrants query availability, register, transfer, renew, and manage domain name registrations.
Historically, and as shown in FIG. 1, a Registrant, for example a first Registrant 101 may register a domain name with a first Registrar 111 and a second domain name with a second Registrar 112. The first Registrant 101 provides the first Registrar 111 and second Registrar 112 with various contact and technical information that make up the registrations. The first and second Registrars 111,112 maintain records with this information and send it to be stored in with the appropriate Registry, for example the First Registry 121. As mentioned above, a zone file contains domain names, their associated names server names and the IP addresses for those names servers. Thus, the first Registry 121, provides other computers on the Internet 131 the information necessary to access content associated with the domain name. The Registry 121 updates TLD zone files for its respective TLDs. However, the Registry 121 does not interact directly with the Registrant 101. It instead waits for the Registrars 111,112 to pass on any information they are provided by the Registrant.
It is possible for a Registrant to hold rights to several domain names that have the same Top-level Domain (TLD) such as .com or .net, which are tied to the same Registry, however, each domain name may be administered by a different Registrar. In cases where a Registrant has registered multiple domain names with multiple Registrars, should a Registrant want to make a general update (such as an address update) to all of its domain name registrations, the Registrant would be required to send the request to multiple Registrars to do so. The same would be true should the Registrant desire to change nameservers, cancel or renew a domain name, transfer a domain name to another Registrant, or other similar administrative tasks. It therefore might be desirable for a Registrant to consolidate all of its domain names into a single Registrar. In addition, it might also be desirable to provide a more centrally controlled interface allowing a Registrant to process or at least monitor similar changes to multiple domain name registrations all at once, or at least in batches.
The foregoing example of the related art and limitations related therewith are intended to be illustrative and not exclusive. Other limitations of the related art will become apparent to the alert reader upon a reading of the specification and a study of the drawings.